American Airlines To Lay Off Up To 1,209 People at Miami International Airport

As many as 1,209 workers could find themselves out of work soon. American Airlines has filed a notice with the state that it plans to layoff up to 1,414 people between November 16 and December 16, just in time for the holidays. The vast majority of those jobs will be coming from Miami International Airport. Updated.

"As part of [AA's parent company's] restructuring, an early termination of the ATR aircraft leases has been negotiated, which will result in the closure of the Executive Airlines pilot and flight attendant crew bases at Miami International Airport on November 15, 2012," an exec informed the state in a filing.

Those positions included 77 pilots, 65 flight attendants, three members of the management team, and one member of the support staff.

Now it appears that those layoffs were just the tip of the iceberg.

American Airlines and its affiliates are the only major passenger airlines that use MIA as a hub.

Update:

According to The Tampa Bay Times, 1,209 of those jobs will come from Miami International. Those workers will be out of a job effective December 16th, just nine days before Christmas. 47 employees at Ft. Lauderdale International will also be laid off.

Update 2: American Airlines clarifies that it may be possible that 1,209 jobs could be lost at MIA, but the actual number may be fewer. Here's the statement we received:

"Through restructuring, American Airlines has worked to lower our costs through sustainable, structural changes. Unfortunately, it was clear from the beginning that this would involve job loss.

"That's why we made a committed effort through "early out" incentive programs, home-based work options and negotiated solutions with the unions to reduce the number of involuntary reductions. While any job loss is difficult, we now expect the need to furlough only about one-third of our original estimate as a result of these efforts and other progress on our restructuring plans.

"Because some of the incentive programs are still open, and because the business changes will take place over several months, we don't yet have final furlough numbers. We are issuing WARN notices to the unions and employees who may be affected to comply with state and federal law, but expect the ultimate impact on jobs will be far less than the number of those notified." - Bruce Hicks, American Airlines spokesman